I have wronged you yet again; I confess, kiss you on the cheek and hands, and ask you once more to forgive my colossal laziness when it comes to letters. However, this laziness is understandable. I'm so tired, I have so many things to do, that when I come home to rest I cannot find the strength to settle down and write letters. Over the last few days I've been quite unwell. I had a sore throat and a fever, and I still have a horrible choking cough. This isn't anything serious, and my health is generally fine. Life goes on. I can't find the time to be bored, and would have been completely happy were it not for the fate of my opera [1], about which I still don't have any definite information. I've just been told that it still hasn't been decided whether it will be put on this season, but the waiting is so agonizing, and I need the money. Since I don't have any actual children, my heart is wholly cleaved to the children of my musical imagination, and it suffers with them, just like a mother wishing to marry off her daughters and anxiously seeking out suitors. Not only would it be nice finally to hear my opera performed, but I should like to live for three or four weeks in Petersburg with you. It's a painfully long time since I had the opportunity to eat your wonderful soup every day, to sleep on your dear couch under a thick eiderdown, to listen to the high-pitched laughter issuing from dear dumpling[2]; in short, to partake of all the delights of living with you, the most important, of course, being to see you and kiss you as much as possible. I am terribly angry with Modya for not writing me just a brief summary of what he's doing, and how his work is going; whether he's reached a decision, and if so, is it good, where, with whom, and under what circumstances? Please, box his ears for this. The Davydovs are also worried about him. I'm with them every Sunday. Aleksandra Ivanovna [3] is quite well, but naturally very upset by Vasily Vasilyevich's [4] illness. Just now Lizaveta Vasilyevna [5] gave me a letter from Sasha. She wrote that she is becoming disenchanted with Vevey as regards education, and is starting to consider somewhere larger. It's generally clear that Vevey is a long way from fully meeting her requirements. Kolya stopped with me in passing, and I got to know his wife very well, and like her very much. Tolya, the scoundrel, has written absolutely nothing.

Tell golubchik Modya that one of these days I'll do my duty by him and box his ears. I kiss your hands. A hug to dear Dumpling.